Piers Morgan interviewde astrofysicus Neil deGrasse Tyson

Wetenschap en religie hoeven niet hand in hand te gaan…
door Tsenne Kikke - zondag 29 december 2024 0:38

Piers Morgan, presentator van 'Sky News Australia', stelde astrofysicus Neil deGrasse Tyson vragen, waaronder over het bestaan van een God, waarop DeGrasse Tyson antwoordde dat iedereen open zou moeten staan voor het'onbekende'.

“Wat ik je zal vertellen... Er zijn veel onbekenden in het universum, maar alleen omdat er onbekenden zijn, betekent niet dat er een godheid in het onbekende is,” zei hij. "Ik krijg geen reden om te zeggen: we gaan iets vinden waarin God centraal staat en er zal geen wetenschap zijn om het toe te passen. Ik ga eerst naar de wetenschap kijken.”

Transcript

"I'm talking to arguably the most popular scientist in the universe ever: Professor Neil degrass Tyson whose new book just to do a bit of media sensationalism. And Neil this new book 'To infinity and beyond' is out this month. It's, it's absolutely riveting . You write about this stuff so brilliantly you bring it all so alive. Um, I want to go into a few things. But first of all the key question for me with all this -especially when I was reading a book - how much do you think we know, and how much do you think we don't know about what's out there?"

"That's a great question - and, uh, I can actually quantify that answer. So, here there are these things there's dark matter you might have heard about. So dark matter is 85% - it's responsible for 85% of the gravity in the universe, and we have no idea what it is - but we can measure it - there's Dark Energy responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe... We can measure that, but we don't know what's causing it. And then you add up all of these sort of what these forces are doing in the universe it's 96% of what's driving the universe, and all the forces of nature that we know and love gravity, uh, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, life, chemistry, biology, physics: that's in 4% of the universe. So, we know enough about the universe to quantify our ignorance. So we know 4% of what's going on out there. But also keep in mind that as the area of our knowledge grows so too does the perimeter of our ignorance, and that is the very soul of science that... Their questions people say what questions do you want answered? Yeah, I don't think that way. I think what question do I not even yet know to ask."

"Yes, I think that's the really interesting part is that you're probably not even thinking of the great question right? Because maybe something correct that's..."

"I lose sleep over that, yes."

"Now, how you I know you're an avowed atheist. How can you be so certain that there is no Supernatural Godlike entity out there, given that we know so little?"

"Well, first I I don't count myself among the ranks of avowed atheists and I give a fast example why... A friend of mine went up to fix the Hubble telescope - okay, on the space shuttle, and on my, on my, on my Facebook feed I said God Speak to the Space Shuttle astronauts and then in the comment there it said: 'I thought you were an atheist. How could you possibly say that?' And so, the fact that I gleefully said that - and atheists complained about it - clearly I'm not an atheist, okay? My favorite, my favorite Broadway musical of all time is Jesus Christ Superstar which I saw in real time in New York City, and I don't know that atheist... So I don't...

"So is there a God then, Neil degrass Tyson!? I'll be about to have breaking news is there a God?"

"Okay, so I will tell you is that with there a lot of unknowns in the universe but just because they unknowns does not mean there's a deity in the unknown if you're going to assign a Deity to that, which that doesn't mean there isn't, that's correct."

"So you're more of an open mind..."

"...about this, right? I, everyone should, the the unknown is the unknown. But the track record of people saying God is behind this, and then you add a little science to it, and you find out that we can completely explain it and control it. Then the history of that exercise is so rich with science discovering the unknowns that were previously ascribed to deity, like lightning bolts and weather systems – there was Poseidon, there was Zeus, there was just look at the history of this. I’m not given reason to say, we’re going to find something God is going to be at the center of at and there’ll be no science to apply. I’m going to look at the science first, cuz that's how the history of this exercise has unfolded.”

"I want to play you a clip. This is you talking to Joe Rogan about vegans..."

You want to save animals. Um, I never seen, I've never seen anyone say: Save the leeches..."

"No, no one cares about bugs..."

"... save the ticks. And you can ask if you really into animals and don't want to kill them, if you heard that ticks were endangered, would you start a movement to protect ticks? Would you do that, and if you would more power to you. But I'm thinking you're not..."

"Yhey're not it's the little guys they don't care about. I've had this debate with vegans. I had one last week. I have it every month and I always point out most vegans I know munch away on armond and avocados and they turn a blind eye to the fact that this causes the mass murder of billions of bees mainly in California. They don't want to have that debate because I don't care about the little guys, Neil."

"My, my only reaction there is, um, that comment was addressing only vegans who are vegans because they don't want to kill animals. Other reasons to be vegan for health, or the..."

"I'm talking specifically the ones who run into State cows is playing sounds of cows being slaughtered they're the ones that munch avocados and arms, invariably."

"Yeah, and by the way..., and they are dining upon the reproductive organ of plants. That's kind of weird, and I imagine if if an if a if a plantbased alien visited Earth they would freak out when they saw vegetarians because the vegetarians would be eating them right - and, and and vegetarians target, um, not only the reproductive organs: the nuts, the berries, the flowers, but they also target the infant versions of it with baby lettuce, baby carrots, baby... this is this would terrify a plant-based aliens. So, that's just a cosmic perspective on that..."

"No, no, you've given me you have given me a whole new line of attack: the, the the flower babies, I love it this is fantastic. Uh, I, I, I just they I find the..."

"That's the point. That's dangerous, if, if it's dangerous to feed you more lines of attack. I don't know what you're going to do with it."

"No, but I always like to take these things to their debates to their logical end, right? I and it seems to me they when it suits them. They care about the bigger animals, the cuddly ones, but when it comes to the little guys they're not interested. Um, now I want to talk about..."

"The furry ones, the fury ones especially..."

"Something even more iconic actually than God or vegans - and, it's your mustach which has become one of the world's most famous mustaches. And he's extraordinary. There's a whole website that's been set up called degrass Tyson's mustache, and we did a bit of research ourselves, a bit of scientific research, uh, and there's a mustache montage that we have here which is quite extraordinary. It it turns out almost every brilliant scientist has had a magnificent tash. Uh, Nicola Tesla, the inventor extraordinaire: great tash. Louie de brogley, he discovered the wavelike nature of all matter: great Tash. Hans Gyer famous for the Geer counter. Robert H. Godar built the first liquid fueled rocket - and, of course: Albert Einstein, probably the one nearest to your own. Um, you, you've become the modern day Godfather of science mustaches, but very much running in a sort of a great long historic list of great tashes.

"I, I, I, I'd never thought about it. This mustache I've never shaved it in my life. Yes, I've trimmed it but it's ever since I could grow a mustache, I've had a mustache. So, uh, it's just part of my life and even it was kind of out of style a few years ago - and, I, I was a little bit I did get rid of my mutton chop sideburns. I figured okay that's from 1978. I could lose those, but I did keep the mustache. But if I were to vote among those mustaches I would say... You know we remember Einstein as this wirehaired -you know: gray big bushy eyebrows, but he was a dashing young man. You see him in a tuxedo. Yes! Look at that mustache that's like a Magnum PI mustache, right?"

"There if you could final question, Neil. If you could have dinner tonight with any scientist in the history of recorded mankind who would it be?"

"Yeah, it would be - oh no question about it - Isaac Newton, but I think about that all the time and I'd say iaac come for dinner and he'd look out the window and he see these things moving he said: What are those? And I say: Well they're horse-drawn carriages without a horse. He said: Well, how do they move? They use gasoline. What's gasoline? Oh it's fossil fuels. What's fossil fuels? And, after five minutes of this I say: Go back to where you came from..."

"Also unfortunately your answer..."

"There's so much that has happened since then I don't know if I have the patience.

"Well you killed my theory also, because Isaac Newton famously was clean shaven."

"Oh well, um Newton, we see him with these big locks of curls, but I think that was actually a wig on top of much shorter hair and the statue of him in Cambridge at the in Trinity Church in Cambridge, um, it's you shoot... you see him with short hair "

"Wow!"

"So; I was so disappointed when I heard of that, yeah."

" Neill, I could honestly interview you every single day and it would never get boring. You've got a fantastic way of bringing this stuff to life 'To infinity and beyond: a journey of cosmic Discovery' - Neil degrass Tyson and Lindsey Walker. It's a number one New York Times bestseller as all your books are. It's a fantastic reading. Great to have you, backing on sensor. Thank you."

"Vind mensen, die in zichzelf zowel de motivatie als de aangeboren drijfveer hebben om aan hun Innerlijke Zelf te werken, en we zullen hen gidsen."

- DIMschool vzw, de énige gespecialiseerd in Zelfkennis, zijnde: het kennen van het Zelf -
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